News

Pepsi’s iTunes promo shows weak results

“Apple Computer said Wednesday that about 5 million free songs have been given away through a Pepsi promotion, far fewer than the 100 million tracks that could have been redeemed.

An Apple representative said the music giveaway was probably the biggest ever of its kind but admitted that the company gave away fewer songs than it had intended.

‘We had hoped the redemptions would have been higher,’ said Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice president of worldwide corporate communications. Customers with winning bottle caps have until Friday to redeem their free music tracks.”

Comments

1

Apple and Pepsi did a good job of publicising the promotion, but I know in hawaii I was not able to find a bottle or cup valid for the promotion 3-4 weeks after the official start of the promotion. Apple and Pepsi should continue the promotion for another month or two…

Posted by gheist in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 7:54 PM (CDT)

1

While I didn’t experience that in my metro, it was fairly commonly reported here in the domestic states too.

I think the promo was a great success. It got me to buy a couple pepsi’s I would have otherwise. ;-)

Posted by AMG in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 7:59 PM (CDT)

1

lol, only 5% of the caps were redeemed? sounds like a complete bust.

Posted by ... in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 8:02 PM (CDT)

1

If there were caps to redeem, they sure didn’t show up around here. Its no surprise this thing was a bust, just look in the forums and see all the places caps never were.

Posted by bsoplinger in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 8:11 PM (CDT)

1

Well, 100 million is a lot of Pepsi. May if they went with Coke..

Posted by (T)(C)(O) in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 8:38 PM (CDT)

1

Well . . . the yellow capped pepsi bottles did not show up in soda machines until 2 weeks ago. No wonder the promo was a bust.

Posted by john budacovich in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 8:48 PM (CDT)

1

LA didn’t get them until 3 weeks ago. This was Pepsi’s fsck up, not Apple… other than that they allowed Pepsi to screw it up.

Posted by la mac user in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 9:29 PM (CDT)

1

Yeah, I’m also from LA and didn’t see them until 2 weeks ago. Before that, I was just going to 7-11 and buying their paper Pepsi cups.

- narco

Posted by narco in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 9:39 PM (CDT)

1

You probably didn’t see any in LA b/c that USC student bought them all out . . .

Posted by Erin McHarbesson in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 9:48 PM (CDT)

1

I’ve still have yet to see one of those itunes Pepsi bottles here in Memphis. Probably the reason it did so poorly is because Pepsi did a HORRIBLE job of making the contest available nationwide. I suspect that 2 months from now I will start seeing these yellow caps all over the place.

Posted by LOL in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 10:05 PM (CDT)

1

You’re wrong, this is Apple’s fault, just like the Pepsi ad was ;)

Posted by Nagromme in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 10:24 PM (CDT)

1

i agree with all of you, i was unable to find itunes pepsi bottles until a month into the promotion. I think this was genius idea and that it was a good promotion, it’s just that the distribution sucked! I think appel should extend the promotion so that more caps can be redeemed.

Posted by Damien in Irvine, CA on April 28, 2004 at 11:21 PM (CDT)

1

I assumed correctly, our human race is a bunch of technofobes. Too bad.

Posted by Adam in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 12:09 AM (CDT)

1

Not so, Nagromme, Pepsi dropped the ball on this one. Apple’s job was not getting the caps out nationwide, that was Pepsi’s.

Posted by nwdma in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 1:19 AM (CDT)

1

From my own limited experience with direct mail marketing and promotional campaigns, I’d have said that a 5% take up rate was really very good. Not everyone who buys a Pepsi will even have a computer, let alone know or care what iTunes is, nor place any value on a free song. Others would not be interested in setting up an iTunes account just to redeem that free song. Others will put the caps aside and then fail to redeem them in time. Had I been asked to guess the likely response rate I’d have put it at 2-3%.

Posted by Jacko in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 4:33 AM (CDT)

1

this is completely diferent from direct mailings. the cosumer is actually buying the product to recieve the “deal,” instead of receiving one amidst a pile of other junk mail. secondly, the percieved benefit is almost immediate. buying an itunes song takes minutes, as opposed to having to drive somewhere or make a call for an order.

the problem is, apple is still having trouble convincing people that their limited selection of DRM’ed tracks at lowered quality is the better choice over P2P’s offerings (unlimited selection of non-DRM’ed tracks in whatever format/quality you want.). even when they threw a couple free songs in the mix, the majority of people who took part were the ones already devoted to apple’s offerings.

Posted by eh in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 6:17 AM (CDT)

1

For whatever reason, the Pepsi bottler who serves Eastern Massachusetts only put them on 20 oz bottles that were sent to convenience stores. I never saw a yellow cap in the grocery store, nor did I ever see the promised cans with the promotion. I agree with others that this is Pepsi’s mess.

Posted by Aceon6 in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 6:22 AM (CDT)

1

a can with a free song? woah.. I’d go for that in a heartbeat—cans of pop are almost always* under a dollar.

*curse you, airports!

Posted by dethbrakr in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 7:18 AM (CDT)

1

my school last week took away all bottled pop!!! ARRRRGHHH I am angry.

Posted by armless in Irvine, CA on April 29, 2004 at 7:29 AM (CDT)

1

I managed to get 4 free song caps out of 8 bottles purchased. Then I realized I was paying $1.19 for a beverage I didn’t really like to get a song that would cost $0.99. Oh well.

Bought ‘em all at gas stations (which broke my normal pay-at-the-pump routine) in the metro Atlanta area. If they had six-packs of the bottles with yellow caps at the grocery store I’d probably have bought ‘em out, though.